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SKYPE, the Internet phone service, has the cheapest price plans for local and IDD calls here.
The company, owned by Internet auctions giant eBay, launched two services earlier this year, and a check by The Straits Times showed that they beat anything on offer from other telcos.
The first is a US$5.95 (S$8.13) per month Unlimited Country plan that allows virtually unlimited calls to any Singapore number.
The other, called the World Unlimited Service, allows subscribers to make as many calls as they want to numbers in 34 countries for US$12.95 (S$18) per month.
Among the locations included in this service are China, including Hong Kong, and the United States.
Though advertised as 'unlimited', the calls are governed by a fair use policy that limits users to 10,000 minutes (167 hours) per month.
Still, that works out to over five hours per day, more than enough time for some serious chit-chat every day.
Skype is a software programme that allows users to make phone calls over the Internet using PCs, mobile phones and other devices. There is even an option to make calls using a Sony Playstation Portable, a handheld video game console.
Launched in 2003, the service has taken off dramatically. It began as a PC to PC call service - users could call and talk to each other using special headsets - but soon grew to offer PC to phone services, and eventually, a phone to phone one.
There are over one million registered Skype users in Singapore, said Mr Chris Lewis, Skype's head of strategy and new business in Asia.
Though wildly popular in the early days, Skype lost some of its lustre as garden variety phone companies kept dropping their charges for local and international calls - they are now lower than ever before.
The new plans should help bring some sheen back to Skype.
'There are large savings for users who call domestically, but the bigger savings are probably for those making regular long distance calls to friends and business partners overseas,' said Mr Lewis.
For local calls, Skype's plan is cheaper than SingTel's fixed line service, which costs an average of 1.13 cents per minute of talk-time, on top of the $26.75 subscription payable every three months.
It is also cheaper than StarHub's Digital Voice home fixed line service, which costs $10.49 per month for unlimited local calls.
But Skype truly shines when it comes to IDD cost-savings. Generally, parents with children studying overseas or companies calling associates abroad stand to gain if they are making more than a few hours of calls a month.
For example, StarHub's 018 budget IDD service costs eight cents per minute for calls to landlines in China, the US or Australia. The Skype World Unlimited bundle works out to just 0.2 cents per minute.
Analysts agreed the price savings were substantial.
Senior analyst Soh Siow Ming at Current Analysis said having to pay a fixed monthly subscription was a deterrent to casual users, but frequent users and smaller businesses which make a lot of IDD calls could benefit.
But Mr Kenneth Liew, senior market analyst at research firm IDC, said that the new plans might not be just the ticket for Skype.
He said: 'Most users are using the PC, but the majority of IDD callers here are using phone-based services. For Skype to really take off, it needs to have more consumer devices like Skype phones.'
ginlee@sph.com.sg
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